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Crooklands villagers furious over repeated blackouts

RESIDENTS in Crooklands and surrounding villages have expressed their frustration at what they say are repeated power cuts to their homes and businesses.

The latest fault on overhead lines wiped out electricity to 1,253 homes for up to six hours.

Mike Glover, who runs a media consultancy firm from his home in Milton, said: “It seems ridiculous that the local MP and others are calling for improved broadband in rural areas if we can’t even have electricity.

“We have at least two severe power cuts a year, which disrupt business as well as annoy householders.

“It is about time they put these cables underground to protect them from modest winds, startled birds, and all the other weak excuses they come up with.”

Gemma Shah, manager at the Crooklands Hotel on the A65, said power cuts there were happening more often, averaging one every other month. She said: “It affects everything for us - we have no computers, no phone lines, we can’t cook anything. We have to cancel meetings which have been booked in. It obviously affects our guests in a big way and we lose business because of it.”

A spokesman for Electricity North West said the most recent power cut was a fault out of Kirkby Lonsdale, and there had been two previous outages in October.